Saturday, July 19, 1997

Church women sew friendship in quilts

By PAMELA WARD / Austin American-Statesman

ROUND ROCK, Texas - "Let me show you something," says the woman with a gentle voice. "Come with me."

Around the corner and down the quiet hallway the visitor is led, into the spacious parish hall of Round Rock's historic Palm Valley Lutheran Church. Christina Craddock touches a large quilt that hangs on the wall. The quilt is creamy white, hand-stitched with a pattern of yellow sunflowers. "See this?" she asks.

Each petal of each flower is signed in the careful cursive of the quilt's creators.

"That was here when I was confirmed in '33," Craddock says. "I don't know how long it's actually been here, but it's a long time."

For decades, the sunflower quilt has held a place of honor in the church, a testament to the talents of those who learned as girls to bring beauty to the necessities of life.

Craddock leads the way back to a bright, busy room. Here, she and friends surround a wooden frame. They stretch a large piece of fabric, and clamp the edges tight to the frame. Today, they will make another quilt.

Unlike the sunflower quilt in the parish hall, there is no telling where this one will go - to West Africa, perhaps, to patients in a TB hospital, or to Central America, to become a room divider, or on a truck rolling toward Texas flood victims.

There is little discussion about the task ahead; they've been here before. They take seats in a square and with needles and thimbles, they go to work, tying together another rainbow.

For 25 years, for almost every Tuesday since 1972, the ladies of Palm Valley have assembled in this spacious sun-filled room. The cause has been the same, to assist Lutheran World Relief by making quilts. Before the afternoon is over, another quilt will be complete, but more will have been accomplished than a mission of Christian charity.

On these afternoons, the Lutheran ladies talk about quilting, but mostly about life, all the thrills and spills and humdrum in between. They discuss hospitalizations and graduations, birthdays and fish fries - everything from salt-free diets to singing Chihuahuas.

"From Tuesday to Tuesday, we have to catch up," Doris Wallin says with a smile. "We'll quilt again today if we ever get through talking."

Sewing machines whir and coffee percolates and Alice Sandberg says she's in awe of the wildflowers at Mays Street and U.S. 79. Pauline Wallin had a heck of a time ironing the old lace church cloth this week. Lillie Anderson reports her house is being roofed "and what a mess it is." The house, as she puts it, "was born in 1908" when her husband, Lawrence, was 8 years old. "He was 97 on Sunday," she tells the group.

"Did you read in the paper, they think coffee wards off cancer?" Alienn Warner asks the group. "I'd just about weaned myself away from coffee. I think I'm going to start again."

That leads to confessions. Many here have on occasion spoiled their grandkids with java. "Tyler's just 13-14 months. He drinks coffee," says Craddock. She confesses more: "The only one who knows is me." They all laugh.

The group, typically varying from eight to 13 women, starts its work by setting up a frame of wooden braces, then clamping layers of cloth to the edges. There is a plain cloth bottom, a blanket in the middle that provides warmth and weight, and on top, a patchwork that has been arranged and stitched together from fabric remnants donated by parishioners.

The quilters tie the three layers together with brightly colored thread - a quilting technique called tacking, which requires repeated pushing and pulling of needles. Theirs are agile hands with veins the color of soft blue yarn, hands experienced at their art, but occasionally the work is punctuated with an "ouch!" Napkins to blot blood, and bandages, are close at hand.

Periodically the quilters stand, roll up finished edges, then sit and sew again.

Quilt-making is a long tradition here in the Palm Valley, an area of fertile flat land on Round Rock's eastern side. This land was settled in the mid-1800s by Swedish settlers, and named after pioneer Anna Hurd Palm, who was left a widow with six sons when her husband died of cholera in the family's first year in Texas.

The white steeple of historic Palm Valley Lutheran Church rises as a beacon from a rapidly changing landscape. In front of the church on U.S. 79 acreage is plowed for crops, but nearby farmland is being carved into suburban lots and apartments for newcomers.

Change surrounds them. The ladies were astonished when someone a few years ago sneaked into the church closet and stole 10 quilts waiting to be shipped. They now lock the room. "We've got all these," Anderson says, "and that box is plumb full of quilts."

In the midst of change, the quilters are steadfast. These are women who have known each other for decades. They either grew up together, or came to Round Rock as young brides like Warner, now a widow, did 52 years ago.

They see one another at church on Sundays, but these Tuesday afternoons are their social time. "This group is extra close because we quilt," says Warner. "It's like a sisterhood."

They discuss church attendance, which leads to the pros and cons of sitting in the church balcony. Doris Wallin makes everybody laugh with her recollection of "the day that a bottle of milk dropped from the balcony right into a man's lap. It kind of shook him up."

Sandberg leans over a piece of bird print cloth. "Seeing those birds reminds me," she says. "Coming over here I had to cross the creek and I had to wait until some ducks got across. They're so cute."

As the afternoon ticks on, the quilting circle gets smaller. Just as the stitchwork moves to the quilt's center, the conversation becomes more intimate.

Warner talks about the pair of border collies her family owned. "When Phillip (her husband) died, I'd put the dogs in the pickup and drive them down to the ranch, and they'd look and look. Then, they'd lie down in the back of the pickup," she says. "Don't tell me animals don't grieve."

They mention that a friend's father, a fireman, was killed in the 1947 Texas City disaster in which a cargo ship explosion ripped apart the refinery town.

Warner says she was just 9 when she experienced a deep loss. "I was holding my mother's hand when she died." She pauses. "It still hurts."

"Sure it does," Della Liardon says, with a gentle nod toward her sister, Craddock. "We still miss our mother."

In the sewing room is a framed remembrance to the ladies who used to join the Tuesday group, and the dates they passed on:

- Bertha Pecht, October 23, 1978

- Mance Anderson, May 10, 1979

- Ellen Berkman, April 16, 1980

- Rosa Almquist, April 19, 1980

- Viola Johnson, February 2, 1984

- Nora Pokrant, March 11, 1985

- Ellen Warner, August 8, 1987

- Louise Johnson, August 29, 1987

- Annie Johnson, May 25, 1990

- Esther Jacobson, July 11, 1992

- Alma Peterson, July 1, 1994

"So many have passed away," Lillie Anderson says. At 85, she is the oldest quilter. She takes a picture from the wall, one where a colorful quilt is held aloft by women in '70s-style attire. "Gosh, almost all of those are gone," she says, "except Doris. And that's Bertha; she's in a nursing home. Ada just died here recently."

Others gather to look. They remember. "Anyway," says Doris Wallin, breaking the silence, "it's a long time ago. We've made a lot of stitches since then."

Vera Anderson, who chairs the congregation's mission effort, says, "It's amazing what all these hands can do."

"I would imagine we've given away more than 500 quilts," says Lillie Anderson.

In June, the group dispatched six of its quilts to Jarrell tornado victims. Two of the quilters have relatives whose homes were destroyed. "We'll give more," Anderson says. "They're not settled yet, and they have no place to keep them."

When Wichita Falls suffered from a tornado years ago, they sent quilts.

"They've gone to Guatemala, and lots of places through Lutheran World Relief, and they've gone to people whose homes have burned," Anderson says. "We make some extra nice ones now and then in case we have to give them to folks around here. We're proud of our quilts."

They don't see many newcomers on quilting days, so a new face in the sewing room is viewed with some curiosity. Sometimes, the quilters admit, they wonder who will keep the tradition alive.

"Do you sew?" Ann Monnett asks a visitor nearly half her age. "Would you do this?" The visitor declines - not enough time or patience. "My daughter wouldn't either," Monnett says. "It isn't her time to sit and sew."

Vera Anderson looks down at her hands and pulls up another strand of thread, stitching a gift that will bring someone somewhere warmth or shelter. "Used to be, every woman sewed," she says. "It was a have-to, a necessity.

"Now there's better things to do."

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Distributed by The Associated Press